Chapter 9 Verb phrases and verbal marking
This chapter focuses on the structure of the verb phrase and the inflectional
morphology associated with verbal predicates. While most, if not all, of these
features have been evident in illustrative examples in previous chapters, none
has been examined in much detail. In addition to the verbal voice system de-
tailed in section 1, manners of indicating mood and aspect are examined in sec-
tions 2-4, negation in section 5, and adversative, involitive, and abilitive VPs in
section 6.
1. Voice
Far and away the most striking and unique feature of Western Austronesian
languages is the morphological means for identifying on the verb the most
prominent argument in a clause. In looking at Tagalog, Starosta (1986) refers to
this as the ‘perpetual centre of the sentence’. This is illustrated in (1a,b). Each
sentence makes use of the same verbal predicate and the same arguments, and
the clauses are propositionally equivalent; however, (1a) has the agent precede
the verb, which takes a nasal prefix, and (1b) has the object precede the verb,
which takes the prefix e-.
(1) a. Ale' noro' Ebu.
yngr.sibling AV.follow mother
‘Little Brother followed Mother.’
b. Ebu e-toro' Ale'.
mother OV-follow yngr.sibling
‘Little Brother followed mother./Mother was followed by Little Brother.’
In (1a), the ‘perceptual centre’ is Ale' ‘Little Brother’ and in (1b) it is Ebu
‘mother’. This element has been alternately referred to as the subject, the topic,
the focus, and the ‘trigger’ in various accounts of closely related languages.
Here the term ‘subject’ will be employed as in many ways it is the most gener-
ally used and theory-neutral term that can be applied.
Formosan languages, Philippine languages, and Malagasy are widely
recognized as having rich voice systems in which as many as 6 voices are po-
sited, each with it identifying morphology. Generally only two distinct voices
are posited for Indonesian languages, including Madurese, based largely on the